He’s gonna be famous soon. So then you’re gonna see that l loved him all along.

Noted. What’s your biggest phobia?

Are there phobias of, like, being buried alive?

Are you kidding me? That’s my number-one phobia!

Yeah, then that. Kendall’s never gonna guess that, though. I feel like I’m just setting her up for the impossible.

You’re both gonna get that one wrong, I bet, so it’s fine. There will be penalties.

Are we gonna get kicked off Friend Crush if we get all of these wrong? Like, “Oh, they aren’t really friends!”

Yeah, and you’re not allowed to talk to each other anymore. You’re actually gonna get kicked off being friends.

[Laughs] We can’t be friends anymore?

Nope! Is there anything you want me to ask her when I call her?

Nah, just tell her that I love her.

Aww. I will.

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ROOKIE: Mary said she thought you’d hurt your back in seventh grade, and that’s why you had to miss so much school. How did that happen?

KENDALL [crushee]: I don’t remember how it happened, exactly. I remember standing at the sink one day, and then I, like, fainted, and then after that I had a really hard time walking.

Oh god!

Then eventually I just got better. I healed. But it was not a fun time. And it was extra hard because I had just started at this new school, so I missed the beginning of the year, when I could have been making friends. When I came back, I just clung to Mary and to her—now our—friend Cara. And that was how I became friends with Mary!

It seems sort of undecided whether she volunteered or was told to call you.

I’m pretty sure that since no one else wanted to do it, Mary was like, “OK, I guess I’ll do it.”

Do you and she have any inside jokes?

We don’t really have any inside jokes, but there are things we continuously laugh about—like how my pants would always rip in high school.

What?

My pants would always rip! Like one time, they ripped in front of this big window in the cafeteria, and a bunch of people saw. Another time we were running around and we were jumping on each other’s backs, and I jumped on her back and I ripped my pants. And then one time I jumped on another one of our friends’ backs, and Mary was there to see me rip my pants again! Somehow she was always there when my pants were ripping. She always had to lend me her gym sweatpants to wear for the rest of the day.

Kendall, what was going on with your pants?

[Laughs] OK, so I’m really, really tall. Like, I’m 5′11″. And I have really long legs, so it’s always hard to find pants that fit properly. So I would wear these really old jeans, and I would make them last forever. And you know how with some friends you just kind of sit around and watch TV and chill? Mary’s not like that. When I’m with her, we’re always running around doing something.

Have you found any good sources since then of tall-girl clothes that you can share with our tall-girl readers?

Oh my gosh, yeah. If you’re tall and you want skinny jeans, Old Navy is the place to go. They actually have pants that are long. And they fit great. That’s the place!

Mary said that one thing she enjoys doing for her friends is making mix CDs.

Oh, yeah. They’re always really good. She made me one last year that was like two CDs long, and I like almost every single song on it.

What makes her mixes so good? Does she kind of tailor the songs to the recipient?

Yeah, she definitely makes her CDs based on, like, “I think that so-and-so would like this kind of song.” I can never do that. I’m more like, “I like these songs, I’m gonna make this CD.” And then she makes collages on the cases. I have one right here. It’s called “It’s Better Than Silence” and it has stickers on the inside and she did this design on these pieces of paper. It’s just really cute!

Send me a picture of that CD case, if you can—maybe we’ll make it into a little playlist in this post.

Artwork and playlist by Mary.

You just started school in September, yeah?

Yeah.

How’s it going?

It’s going all right. it’s tiring! It’s not super super hard, but at the same time it is super hard, because they give a lot of work, but not a lot of time to do it in. It’s so frustrating—it’s like, I know I could do this a lot better if I had more time to do it.

Are you a science major?

I’m going to be.

Which makes sense, because Mary said that you’re a science genius.

I’m a science what?

Genius.

Oh, no, I’m not. I used to be really good at science, because that was what I was into. I still like science a lot, but I wouldn’t say I’m, like, a genius anymore, because now I go to school with a bunch of other smart people.

This is that Ivy League syndrome thing, where every kid who goes to an Ivy League school was the smartest kid in their high school, and they got used to being the smartest, so when they go to the place where they’re not the smartest anymore, it feels weird.

Yeah, but it didn’t really upset me. I knew what I was getting into. It’s just annoying, because when I go back home, everyone’s like, “Oh my god, you must be so smart!” and I’m like, “I’m really not.”

I don’t know, you seem pretty smart to me. I’m going to ask you these same questions about her in a minute, but first I want to tell you that when I asked Mary to name your “worst” quality, and she said that you often think less of yourself than she feels you should.

[Long pause] That’s…it’s…kind of a really bad quality. But it’s true. It’s not even a lie. It’s 100% true.

She also said that you can be socially awkward sometimes. She told me this story where you were in high school and you and she and Cara were hanging out at her house, and when Mary’s brother entered the room you started talking about vaginas.

[Laughs] That’s not exactly what happened!

What happened?

It was Mary’s 14th birthday party; we were in eight grade. It was me, Mary, Cara, and this girl Tess, and we had just come home from going out to dinner, and her brother was home. I had like a huge crush on Mary’s brother at the time, so, like, of course I was being socially awkward! I don’t know how it came up, but Tess and I did start talking about vaginas. At some point I realized that Mary’s brother was in the room, but I just didn’t stop, because I thought it was funny. I have no idea what we were even saying, but I totally remember doing that. And to be honest, I probably would do it again to this day!

No regrets!

Yeah! I’m very socially awkward, but I’m one of those socially awkward people who don’t care. I’m kind of outgoing, but I’m introverted at the same time, which confuses people.

We are so on the same page with this. I am also a loud, awkward, hammy introvert.

Yeah. We exist! Other people don’t get it. They’re like, “You’re not introverted!” and I’m like, “Here’s the thing. Think about it: How much do you actually know about me? Not that much!” And they’re like, “You’re right!”

Right, like they never noticed that you don’t talk much about yourself because you probably ask them a lot of questions about themselves, and people love talking about themselves.

Totally.

I don’t know if this is true for you, but with me, people don’t believe me when I say I’m shy or introverted because I can make conversation and be social and all of that, but what they don’t understand is that as much as I adore my friends and adore hanging out with my friends, my preferred mode of existence in general is being alone.

I completely agree. I don’t even understand those people who can’t be alone! Like, why don’t you want to be alone? Why isn’t it the best thing to ever happen to you? Don’t you realize how much you can do when you’re by yourself?

Seriously. And you can do whatever you want!

And you can dress however you want, and no one will judge you. You can just hang with yourself!

You can eat cereal for dinner, no one cares.

Or you can put, like, weird things in your ramen noodles, which is what I do, and no one will judge you.

What do you put?

The other day I put chili in my ramen noodles.

That sounds delicious.

It looks really gross, but it was actually pretty good. I also put taco meat in my ramen noodles.

I love Friend Crush so much, it’s probably one of my favorite things on Rookie because the friendships always seem so genuine and cute. And when Mary said her crush was Miles Teller I literally said Oh my God aloud because I thought nobody else knew who he was or thought he was cute! I’ve seen almost every movie he’s in and he’s sooo adorable, I totally agree, he’s going to be huge in a year or two, especially with all the movies he has coming out.

Psst! Hey! Can you keep a secret? This month's theme is TRUST, which is about honesty and its opposite, plus so much more. If you’d like to entrust us with an essay or a photo set, comic, poem, short story, or any other pitch you’ve got, please email it to submission@rookiemag.com. ✪

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